"Serving West and East Village, Chelsea, SoHo, NoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown and the Lower East Side"

Volume 76, Number 39February 21 - 27, 2007

Editorial/Op-EdPier 40: Which plan is best for the community?In 2003, the effort to redevelop Pier 40 at the end of W. Houston St. into a park and commercial complex crashed. Before that happened, however, four years ago, hundreds of engaged Villagers packed public forums at which the development groups presented their plans.

Talking PointFashion designers have unraveled my neighborhoodBy Kate Walter
Oh no, they got the Japanese store too, the young woman walking ahead of me on Bleecker St., exclaimed to her friend as they passed what used to be Old Japan Antiques and was now another Marc Jacobs outlet, set to open this summer.

Baracks black dilemma: Figuring the funk factorBy Salim Muwakkil
The day after the national celebration of King Day, Senator Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill.) announced he was forming a committee to explore a run for the presidency. Obamas rapid ascent and the popular draft that has swept him into the presidential race would have amazed the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Renato DeMaria, principal, 75By Albert Amateau
Renato DeMaria, a retired principal of New Dorp High School in Staten Island and a resident for the past 17 years of Christopher St. in the West Village, died Mon., Feb 5, in Lennox Hill Hospital at the age of 75.

St. Brigid’s is hanging on by a prayer after rulingBy Albert Amateau
The Committee to Save St. Brigid’s is still fighting to save the East Village church, built by immigrant Irish boat builders, despite a Feb. 13 State Supreme Court ruling lifting an injunction that has prevented the Catholic Archdiocese from demolishing the 1849 building.

McMansion legal beef continues; Landlords win appealBy Sarah Ferguson
Tenants fighting to stop a wealthy couple from turning their E. Third St. tenement into a private McMansion suffered a big legal setback this month when a state appeals court ruled that there is nothing in the law that limits the number of rent-regulated apartments a landlord can take over for his or her personal use.

Dinosaur Hill recognized with monster-size storesBy Jefferson Siegel
The day before the International Toy Fair opened earlier this month for 15,000 buyers, representatives and other toy-business types, several dozen of these took a tour of three local businesses.

Keeping down bar noise is starting to get fashionableBy Julie Shapiro
Designers for the international clothing chain H & M must be hanging out in bars on the Lower East Side. That’s the only explanation resident Rebecca Moore can concoct for the T-shirts she recently found at H & M, which read: “Please Respect Our Neighbors.”

Family and a holy mole sauce is a winning recipeBy Barry Paddock
Recently, Jose Marmolejo, 25, forgot to order the tortillas for Puebla Mexican Food, the takeout and delivery restaurant on First Ave. in the East Village where he has worked with his mother since he was 14.

Arts and EntertainmentA sentimental journey from one war to anotherBy Jerry Tallmer
In 1987 a gorgeous and gorgeously talented young actress/singer named Andrea Marcovicci made her New York cabaret debut in the Hotel Algonquin’s historic Oak Room. “A voice of apricots and almonds,” said my review  noting also that here was a voice, repertoire, and running commentary of high intelligence.

For this theater critic, a round of applauseBy Nicole Davis
Whether Norman Mailer’s father was a skilled accountant, or whether he wasn’t, by June of 1956, a year after Mailer senior agreed to look after the finances of the brand-new Village Voice, Edwin Fancher’s paper was out of money. So Fancher closed it down, and together with the drama critic Jerry Tallmer, they spent July and August redoing the books.

Negatively Fourth StreetBy Will McKinley
It’s 7:30 in the morning Los Angeles time and Richard Lewis is already talking a mile a minute. TV viewers know the notorious neurotic for his portrayal of a (slightly) fictionalized version of himself on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

KidsThe total workout for 2-year-old tykes at 14th St. YBy Judith Stiles
The name of the game for 2-year-olds is “free play,” better known as “Tumbling Tykes” at the Sol Goldman Y on 14th St. near First Ave., in which toddlers run amok for the first five minutes, and then settle down to a more organized form of exercise.

Associate editor Lincoln Anderson and reporter Albert Amateau host guests Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation, and David McWater, chairperson of Community Board 3, on The Villager's pilot radio show on Tribecaradio.net. Zoning, preservation and future political aspirations (?) top the list of discussion topics on this 44-minute premiere.

As tourists fill illegal hotels, residents told to check outBy Chris Lombardi
This month, Chelsea resident Maryanne Marinac finally found out why she wasn’t getting her mail. The notice from the U.S. Postal Service was terse and specific: “The Postal Service cannot provide mailbox delivery to the Marriott ExecuStay at 160 W. 24th St.” Why? Because, the note explained carefully, Marinac and her husband were living in a hotel.

Always be prepared is their motto on disastersBy Brooke Edwards
Crippling power outages only strike the outer boroughs. Destruction-wreaking hurricanes are confined to the Southeast and Gulf Coast.
York University community outreach officials.

Bogus hotels in Village and SohoBy Brooke Edwards
Based on residents’ complaints, Housing Conservation Coordinators, a tenant-advocacy group, has compiled a list of 94 suspected illegal hotels scattered throughout Manhattan.

High waters at the old P.S. 64By Lincoln Anderson
The basement of the old P.S. 64 was flooded on Saturday after a water valve inside the building failed.

Bilingual students strut, and hip-hop, into 4705By Kristin Edwards
Little girls and boys in black and white outfits and sparkly gold hats dancing to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” were the opening act of the Lunar New Year celebratory dance show at P.S. 184M on Cherry St.

Private dancerBy Chris Bragg
Two years ago, Lisa Viola stood speechless on the stage before a full house at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea. Viola, a Paul Taylor dancer known for her charismatic performances, had just won one of the dance world’s great honors. But in her acceptance speech, she struggled to conjure up a single word.

Koch on filmBy Ed Koch“The Lives of Others” (+) A.O. Scott of The New York Times brilliantly described this great movie as follows: “Goodness, as a subject for art, risks falling prey to piety and wishful thinking, but ‘The Lives of Others,’ one of the nominees for this year’s best foreign-language film Oscar, never sacrifices clarity for easy feeling.Regular Lovers (-) One of the worst films of the year. It got a very good review in The New York Times by Manohla Dargis, which is why I went to see it. What a dog it was, particularly since it was a very long picture at 179 minutes.